Thomas Weelkes’ “Alleluia, I heard a voice”
Throughout September, the Daily Classical Music Post celebrates the music of 15th-, 16th-, and 17th-century England. https://youtu.be/5KyTxg_LoFA The English composer and organist Thomas Weelkes (1576–1623) is often overlooked, partly because his church music output was overshadowed by many of his contemporaries including Byrd and Tallis, and partly because he died so young. He is now recognized as one of the masters of the English madrigal, and his four published sets are among the very best of that genre. As Chris Whent says, “Thomas Weelkes, whose professional career spanned one of the most fertile periods in England's musical history, is without doubt one of her finest composers. Like Purcell, he had a vivid imagination and love of experiment, and died prematurely at the peak of his creative powers, but not before he had composed a very large amount of music. . . . [W]ell versed in the polyphonic techniques of William Byrd, he apparently devoted his creative energies to the pro...